World media write about Vucic’s possible role in “Sarajevo Safari”

A Croatian investigative journalist has filed a lawsuit with Milan prosecutors against Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic for his alleged involvement in the “Sarajevo Safari,” in which snipers from Italy and other countries allegedly traveled to the Bosnian capital to kill civilians during the four-year siege of the city in the 1990s.

Last week, Milan prosecutors launched an investigation aimed at identifying Italians suspected of involvement in the event, charged with intentional murder aggravated by cruelty and ulterior motives.

According to investigators, groups of “sniper tourists” are suspected of participating in the mass killings after paying large sums of money to soldiers belonging to the army of Radovan Karadzic – the former Bosnian Serb leader who was found guilty of genocide and other crimes against humanity in 2016 – to be transported to the hills around Sarajevo so they could shoot at the population for fun.

More than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo by shelling and sniper fire between 1992 and 1996 in what was the longest siege in modern history, after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia.

Snipers were perhaps the most terrifying element of life under siege in Sarajevo, because they indiscriminately shot people on the streets, including children.

The investigation began with a legal complaint filed by Ezio Gavazzeni, a Milan-based writer who gathered evidence on the allegations, as well as a report sent to prosecutors by former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karic.

Gavazzeni said he had first read reports about the suspected tourists as snipers in the Italian press in the 1990s, but it was only after watching Sarajevo Safari, a 2022 documentary by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic, that he began to investigate further.

The allegations have been reported by numerous international media outlets, including the Daily Mail and the British newspaper The Telegraph.

The Telegraph article also featured testimony from Michael Giffoni, deputy head of the Italian diplomatic mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who said he had been told about the existence of “Safari” in 1994.

“You know, safaris are organized. A lot of rich people come here – some are hunters, others are businessmen. The army and paramilitary formations take them to the hills above Sarajevo and pay for it,” Giffoni said.

The Guardian recently also wrote an article about the allegations against Vucic.

/Telegrafi